"Pop Impressions Europe/USA: Prints and Multiples from The Museum of Modern Art "
2001-06-23 until 2001-09-03
Saint Louis Art Museum
St. Louis, MO, USA

The exhibition Pop Impressions Europe/USA: Prints and Multiples from The Museum of Modern Art presents some 90 works highlighting the pivotal role played by printed art in the Pop aesthetic. Works by well-known American artists such as Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein, and Robert Indiana are shown alongside European contributions by Richard Hamilton, Eduardo Paolozzi, Martial Raysse, and Gerhard Richter.

Organized thematically, the exhibition addresses some of the prevailing subjects that preoccupied Pop artists, including mass media, consumer culture, politics, and erotica. The exhibition begins with proto-Pop examples by artists such as Jasper Johns, Robert Rauschenberg, Daniel Spoerri, and Christo, all of whom rejected the abstract style favored in the 1940s and '50s, and instead took objects from everyday life as their subject matter.

Pop's early development in Europe and the United States coincided with a resurgence of interest in printed art. The recycling of media imagery, the embrace of industrial technologies, and populist ideas about art that characterized Pop meshed perfectly with the multiple possibilities, low production costs, and commercial media associated with printmaking. At the same time, a number of new screenprint workshops arose in Europe and the United States to cater to artists' growing demand to work in this previously commercial medium.

IMAGE:
Gerhard Richter
Airplane I (Flugzeug I), 1966;
Screenprint, printed in color;
19 1/16 x 31 1/2 inches;
The Museum of Modern Art, New York;
Miles O. Epstein and Richard A. Epstein Funds.
Copyright 1966 Gerhard Richter

Related Links:

Indepth Arts Resources for the State of Missouri

Other Important Exhibitions in St. Louis